Good Health—at Your Fingertips

Charlotte Markey, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University–Camden, helped develop the app SmartenFit, which is based on achieving attainable health goals, such as those outlined in her new book, Smart People Don’t Diet: How the Latest Science Can Help You Lose Weight Permanently.

“The app is helpful for those looking for a simplified way to monitor their nutritional choices and exercise, and set realistic and attainable goals without having to count every calorie or step,” says Markey. She is also the author of Smart People Don’t Diet: How the Latest Science Can Help You Lose Weight Permanently (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2014), a refreshing, and realistic, look at the psychological and physical aspects of weight management.

Available through the Apple App Store, SmartenFit allows you to keep tabs on your food intake and set nutrition and health goals. The mobile app also features a newsfeed that provides health tips and articles, a database of healthier food alternatives, a personal food diary, and a body-mass-index calculator. It also allows users to set goals and reminders, and to track their progress. It’s all part of putting the Rutgers–Camden researcher’s suggestions for weight management into action to adopt a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. Much like the advice that Markey provides in her book for reducing bad eating habits, the resource is based on decades of scientific evidence from psychologists, nutritionists, public health professionals, and doctors.

SmartenFit was developed by Markey and two graduate school friends, Jennifer Van Riet and Lorie Sousa, who met at the University of California, Riverside. Sousa, a data scientist and entrepreneur, works in marketing research and education. Van Riet, an authority in user experience and mobile innovation, has worked for Silicon Valley firms such as Intuit, Microsoft, and America Online. For more than 15 years, Markey has developed an expertise in health psychology, conducting research into eating, dieting, body image, and obesity risk. As working mothers, the women have struggled to find easy ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle. They launched SmartenFit as a useful, well-researched tool for “regular people with busy lives” that facilitates health and wellness.